Extreme Ownership

Key Summary Notes

Contents of this Summary

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Leadership: The Single Most Important Factor

PART I: WINNING THE WAR WITHIN

Chapter 1: Extreme Ownership

Chapter 2: No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders

Chapter 3: Believe

Chapter 4: Check the Ego

PART II: LAWS OF COMBAT

Chapter 5: Cover and Move

Chapter 6: Simple

Chapter 7: Prioritise and Execute

Chapter 8: Decentralised Command

PART III: SUSTAINING VICTORY

Chapter 9: Plan

Chapter 10: Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command

Chapter 11: Decisiveness amid Uncertainty

Chapter 12: Discipline Equals Freedom – The Dichotomy of Leadership

Afterword

Foreword

Of the many exceptional leaders we served alongside throughout our military careers, the consistent attribute that made them great was that they took absolute ownership – Extreme Ownership – not just of those things for which they were responsible, but for everything that impacted their mission. These leaders cast no blame. They made no excuses. Instead of complaining about challenges or setbacks, they developed solutions and solved problems. They leverage assets, relationships, and resources to get the job done. Their own egos took a back seat to the mission and their troops. These leaders truly led.

In the years since we left active duty, we have worked with multitudes of business professionals, from senior executives to frontline managers, across a vast range of industries, including finance, construction, manufacturing, technology, energy, retail, pharmaceutical, health care, and also, military, police, fire departments, and emergency first responders. The most successful men and women we’ve seen in the civilian world practice this same breed of Extreme Ownership. Likewise, the most successful high-performance teams we’ve worked with demonstrate this mind-set throughout their organisations.

GET AFTER IT.

Preface

As battlefield leaders, we learned extremely valuable lessons through success and failure. We made mistakes and learned from them, discovering what works and what doesn’t. … Then, as we worked with businesses in the civilian sector, we again saw the leadership principles we followed in combat lead to victory for the companies and executives we trained.

Introduction

Ramadi, Iraq: The Combat Leader’s Dilemma

Blood pumping, adrenaline surging, … “Relax. Look around. Make a call.”

The Laws of Combat:

1. Cover and Move

2. Simple

3. Prioritise and Execute

4. Decentralised Command

Leadership: The Single Most Important Factor

This book is about leadership. It was written for leaders of teams large and small, for men and women, for any person who aspires to better themselves.

Without a team – a group of individuals working to accomplish a mission – there can be no leadership. The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterisations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.

Every leader and every team at some point of time will fail and must confront that failure. … Often our mistakes provided the greatest lessons, humbled us, and enabled us to grow and become better. For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focussed on the mission and how best to accomplish it.

PART I: WINNING THE WAR WITHIN

Chapter 1

Extreme Ownership

Despite all the failures of individuals, units, and leaders, and despite the myriad of mistakes that had been made, there was only one person to blame for everything that had gone wrong on the operation: me. … As the SEAL task unit commander, the senior leader on the ground in charge of the mission, I was responsible for everything in Task Unit Bruiser. I had to take complete ownership of what went wrong. That is what a leader does – even if it means getting fired.

“There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.”

Despite the tremendous blow to my reputation and to my ego, it was the right thing to do – the only thing to do.

Looking back, it is clear that, despite what happened, the full ownership I took of the situation actually increased the trust my commanding officer and my master chief had in me. If I had tried to pass the blame on to others, I suspect I would have been fired – deservedly so. The SEALs in the troop, who did not expect me to take the blame, respected the fact that I had taken full responsibility for everything that had happened. They knew it was a dynamic situation caused by a multitude of factors, but I owned them all.

Principle

On any team, in any organisation, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.

The best leaders don’t just take responsibility for their job. They take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission. This concept is the number-one characteristic of any high-performance winning team, in any military unit, organisation, sports team or business team in any industry.

The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.

If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader.

Total responsibility for failure is a difficult thing to accept, and taking ownership when things go wrong requires extraordinary humility and courage. But doing just that is an absolute necessity to learning, growing as a leader, and improving a team’s performance.

Extreme Ownership mandates that a leader set ego aside, accept responsibility for failures, attack weaknesses, and consistently work to build a better and more effective team. Such a leader, however, does not take credit for his or her team’s successes but bestows that honour upon his subordinate leaders and team members.

Chapter 2

No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders

Leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the entire team. The leader drives performance – or doesn’t. And this applies not just to the most senior leader of an overall team, but to the junior leaders of teams within the team.

My boat crew at times had struggled to perform, until I figured out that I had to put myself in the most difficult position at the front of the boat and lead. That required driving the boat crew members hard, harder than they thought they could go. I discovered that it was far more effective to focus their efforts not on the days to come or the far-distant finish line they couldn’t yet see, but instead on a physical goal immediately in front of them. If we could execute with monumental effort just to reach an immediate goal that everyone could see, we could then continue to the next visually attainable goal and then the next.

A team could only deliver exceptional performance if a leader ensured the team worked together towards a focussed goal and enforced high standards of performance, working to continuously improve.

Principle

When leaders who epitomise Extreme Ownership drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognise that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable – if there are no consequences – that poor performance becomes the new standard. Therefore, leaders must enforce standards. Consequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved.

The leader must pull the different elements within the team together to support one another, with all focussed exclusively on how to best accomplish the mission. One lesson from the BUD/S boat crew leader example is that most people want to be part of a winning team. Yet, they often don’t know how, or simply need motivation and encouragement. Teams need a forcing function to get the different members working together to accomplish the mission and that is what leadership is all about.

Once a culture of Extreme Ownership is built into the team at every level, the entire team performs well, and performance continues to improve, even when a strong leader is temporarily removed from the team. Life can throw any number of circumstances in the way of any business or team. Every team must have junior leaders ready to step up and temporarily take on the roles and responsibilities of their immediate bosses to carry on the team’s mission and get the job done.

Leaders should never be satisfied. They must always strive to improve, and they must build that mind-set into the team. It starts with the individual and spreads to each of the team members until this becomes the culture, the new standard.

Chapter 3

Believe

The most important question had been answered: why? Once I analysed the mission and understood for myself that critical piece of information, I could then believe in the mission. If I didn’t believe in it, there was no way I could possibly convince the SEALs in my task unit to believe in it. If I expressed doubts or openly questioned the wisdom of this plan in front of the troops, their derision towards the mission would increase exponentially. They would never believe in it. As a result, they would never commit to it, and it would fail. But once I understood and believed, I then passed that understanding and belief on, clearly and succinctly, to my troops so that they believed in it themselves. When they understood why, they would commit to the mission, persevere through the inevitable challenges in store, and accomplish the task set before us.

Principle

In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission. Leaders must always operate with the understanding that they are part of something greater than themselves and their own personal interests. They must impart this understanding to their teams down to the tactical-level operators on the ground.

When a leader’s confidence breaks, those who are supposed to follow him or her see this and begin to question their own belief in the mission.

Every leader must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals. When leaders receive an order that they themselves question and do not understand, they must ask the question: why? If they cannot determine a satisfactory answer themselves, they must ask questions up the chain of command until they understand why. If frontline leaders and troops understand why, they can move forward, fully believing in what they are doing.

It is likewise incumbent on senior leaders to take the time to explain and answer the questions of their junior leaders so that they too can understand why and believe. Whether in the ranks of military units or companies and corporations, the frontline troops never have as clear an understanding of the strategic picture as senior leaders might anticipate. It is critical that those senior leaders impart a general understanding of that strategic knowledge – the why – to their troops.

In any organisation, goals must always be in alignment.

Belief in the mission ties in with the fourth Law of Combat: Decentralised Command (chapter 8).

Application to Business

“I’d feel pretty stupid asking. Our CEO is smart and has a lot of experience. She gets this business.” … No one wants to look stupid, especially in front of the boss. “Let me ask you this,” I continued. “When you can’t explain the reason behind this new compensation plan to your sales force, how does that make you look?” “Stupid and scared,” …

A common misperception among military leaders or corporate senior executives, this was an example of a boss who didn’t fully comprehend the weight of her position. In her mind, she was fairly laid back, open to questions, comments, and suggestions from people. She talked about maintaining an “open-door policy”. But in the minds of her sales managers, she was still The Boss: experienced, smart, and most important, powerful. That position demanded a high level of reverence – so high, in fact, that for an employee to question her ideas seemed disrespectful.

Leadership isn’t one person leading a team. It is a group of leaders working together, up and down the chain of command, to lead.

Chapter 4

Check the Ego

In Task Unit Bruiser, we were confident and perhaps even a little cocky. But I tried to temper that confidence by instilling a culture within our task unit to never be satisfied; we pushed ourselves harder to continuously improve our performance. I reminded our troops that we couldn’t take the enemy for granted, that we could never get complacent.

Unfortunately, there were a small number of U.S. special operations units, including some SEALs, who viewed themselves as a cut above regular U.S. Army Soldiers and Marines and would only operate independently. That cockiness produced some conventional Army and Marine commanders who didn’t like special operations units. But if U.S. forces were to win this difficult fight here in Ramadi, we would all need to check our egos and work together.

From our earliest arrival, we established the precedent that in TU Bruiser we would treat our Army and Marine brothers-and-sisters-in-arms with nothing but the highest professional respect and courtesy. SEAL units are sometimes known for long hair and sloppy uniforms. But to conventional units, appearance was a measure of professionalism. In Task Unit Bruiser, I insisted that our uniforms be squared away and our haircuts military regulation. We sought ways to work together with these units in support of one another.

Camp Corregidor bordered one of the most dangerous areas of Ramadi, called the Mala’ ab District. The camp was under constant attack from mortars, machine guns, and rockets. The colonel expected the highest level of discipline from his 1/506th Soldiers; he knew that slacking here, even when just going to the chow hall for lunch, could result in horrific wounds and death. Discipline in such a situation started with the little things: high-and-tight haircuts, a clean shave every day, and uniforms maintained. With that, the more important things fell into place: body armour and helmets worn outdoors at all times, and weapons cleaned and ready for use at a moment’s notice. Discipline created vigilance and operational readiness, which translated to high performance and success on the battlefield.

Principle

Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. Often, the most difficult ego to deal with is your own.

Everyone has an ego. Ego drives the most successful people in life – in the SEAL Teams, in the military, in the business world. They want to win, to be the best. That is good. But when ego clouds our judgement and prevents us from seeing the world as it is, then ego becomes destructive.

Implementing Extreme Ownership requires checking your ego and operating with a high degree of humility. Admitting mistakes, taking ownership, and developing a plan to overcome challenges are integral to any successful team.

PART II: THE LAWS OF COMBAT

Chapter 5

Cover and Move

It was a rude awakening for me. I had become so immersed in the details, decision points, and immediate challenges of my own team that I had forgotten about the other team, what they could do for us and how we might help them.

Going forward I never forgot my chief’s guidance. We utilised the principle of Cover and Move on every operation: all teams working together in support of one another. That realisation and the lesson learned implemented no doubt saved lives, greatly reduced casualties and enabled us to more effectively accomplish our mission and win.

Principle

Cover and Move: it is the most fundamental tactic, perhaps the only tactic. Put simply, Cover and Move means teamwork. All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission, mutually supporting one another for that singular purpose.

Chapter 6

Simple

The MiTT leader was clearly shaken up. It had been his first serious firefight – his first real test as a leader. Luckily, he had our SEAL element with him, which helped ensure his patrol’s survival. Fortunately, he had agreed to keep his mission simple, to minimise complexity for the inevitable contingencies that could arise.

Principle

Combat, like anything in life, has inherent layers of complexities. Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. When plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. And when things go wrong, and they inevitably do go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into total disaster. Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. Everyone that is part of the mission must know and understand his or her role in the mission and what to do in the event of likely contingencies. As a leader, it doesn’t matter how well you feel you have presented the information or communicated an order, plan, tactic, or strategy. If your team doesn’t get it, you have not kept things simple and you have failed. You must brief to ensure the lowest common denominator on the team understands.

Chapter 7

Prioritise and Execute

This was bad. Dreadfully exposed on a wide-open rooftop with no cover, we were completely surrounded by higher, tactically superior positions in the heart of an extremely dangerous, enemy-controlled area. … The clock was ticking on an explosive charge that would set off a huge IED blast, throwing deadly metal fragments (or “frag”) in all directions. Our SEAL element did not yet have a full head count to ensure all our personnel were out of the building. And now, one of our SEALs lay helplessly alone and unable to defend himself on the most dangerous street of the nastiest enemy-held area in Ramadi and we couldn’t get to him. … The massive pressure of the situation bore down on me. This was a hell of a dilemma, one that could overwhelm even the most competent leader. How could we possible tackle so many problems at once?

Prioritise and Execute.

Principle

In implementing the principle of Prioritise and Execute, SEALs verbalise this direction: “Relax, look around, make a call.”

Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously. The team will likely fail at each of those tasks. Instead, leaders must determine the highest priority task and execute. When overwhelmed, fall back on this principle.

A particularly effective means to help Prioritise and Execute under pressure is to stay at least a step or two ahead of real-time problems. Through careful contingency planning, a leader can anticipate likely challenges that could arise during execution and map out an effective response to those challenges before they happen. If the team has been briefed and understands what actions to take through such likely contingencies, the team can then rapidly execute when those problems arise, even without specific direction from leaders. This is a critical characteristic of any high-performance, winning team in any business or industry. It also enables effective Decentralised Command (chapter 8.)

It is crucial, particularly for leaders at the top of the organisation, to “pull themselves off the firing line,” step back, and maintain the strategic picture. This is essential to help correctly prioritise for the team.

Just as in combat, priorities can rapidly shift and change. When this happens, communication of that shift to the rest of the team, both up and down the chain of command, is critical. Teams must be careful to avoid target fixation on a single issue.

To implement Prioritise and Execute in any business, team, or organisation, a leader must:

• Evaluate the highest priority problem.

• Lay out in simple, clear, and concise terms the highest priority effort for your team.

• Develop and determine a solution, seek input from key leaders and from the team where possible.

• Direct the execution of that solution, focussing all efforts and resources towards this priority task.

• Move on to the next highest priority problem. Repeat.

• When priorities shift within the team, pass situational awareness both up and down the chain.

• Don’t let the focus on one priority cause target fixation. Maintain the ability to see other problems developing and rapidly shift as needed.

Chapter 8

Decentralised Command

Pushing the decision making down to the subordinate, frontline leaders within the task unit was critical to our success. This Decentralised Command structure allowed me, as the commander, to maintain focus on the bigger picture: coordinate friendly assets and monitor enemy activity. Were I to get embroiled in the details of a tactical problem, there would be no one else to fill my role and manage the strategic mission.

The proper understanding and utilisation of Decentralised Command takes time and effort to perfect. For any leader, placing full faith and trust in junior leaders with less experience and allowing them to manage their teams is a difficult thing to embrace. In requires tremendous trust and confidence in those frontline leaders, who must very clearly understand the strategic mission and ensure that their immediate tactical decisions ultimately contribute to accomplishing the overarching goals. Frontline leaders must also have trust and confidence in their senior leaders to know that they are empowered to make decisions and that their senior leaders will back them up.

During the first few days of Task Unit Bruiser’s MOUT training, my SEAL leaders tried to control everything and everyone themselves. They tried to direct every manoeuvre, control every position, and personally attempt to manage each one of their men – up to thirty-five individuals in Task Unit Bruiser. It did not work. In a striking realisation that military units throughout history have come to understand by experience, it became clear that no person had the cognitive capacity, the physical presence, or the knowledge of everything happening across a complex battlefield to effectively lead in such a manner. Instead, my leaders learned they must rely on their subordinate leaders to take charge of their smaller teams within the team and allow them to execute based on a good understanding of the broader mission (known as Commander’s Intent), and standard operating procedures. That was effective Decentralised Command.

Here, Decentralised Command was a necessity. In such situations, the leaders did not call me and ask me what they should do. Instead, they told me what they were going to do. I trusted them to make adjustments and adapt the plan to unforeseen circumstances while staying within the parameters of the guidance I had given them and our standard operating procedures. I trusted them to lead. My ego took no offence to my subordinate leaders on the frontlines calling the shots. In fact, I was proud to follow their lead and support them. With my leaders running their teams and handling the tactical decisions, it made my job much easier by enabling me to focus on the bigger picture.

Principle

Human beings are generally not capable of managing more than six to ten people, particularly when things go sideways and inevitable contingencies arise. No senior leader can be expected to manage dozens of individuals, much less hundreds. Teams must be broken down into manageable elements of four to five operators, with a clearly designated leader. Those leaders must understand the overall mission, and the ultimate goal of that mission – the Commander’s Intent. Junior leaders must be empowered to make decisions on key tasks necessary to accomplish that mission in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Every tactical-level team leader must understand not just what to do but why they are doing it.

Decentralised Command does not mean junior leaders or team members operate on their own program; that results in chaos. Instead, junior leaders must fully understand what is within their decision-making authority. Additionally, they must communicate with senior leaders to recommend decisions outside their authority and pass critical information up the chain so the senior leadership can make informed strategic decisions.

To be effectively empowered to make decisions, it is imperative that frontline leaders execute with confidence. Tactical leaders must be confident that they clearly understand the strategic mission and Commander’s Intent. They must have implicit trust that their senior leaders will back their decisions. Without this trust, junior leaders cannot confidently execute, which means they cannot exercise effective Decentralised Command.

With SEAL teams – just as with any team in the business world – there are leaders who try to take on too much themselves. When this occurs, operations can quickly dissolve into chaos. There are other senior leaders who are so far removed from the troops executing on the frontline that they become ineffective. These leaders might give the appearance of control, but they actually have no idea what their troops are doing and cannot effectively direct their teams. Determining how much leaders should be involved and where leaders can best position themselves to command and control the team is key.

Application to Business

Proper Decentralised Command requires simple, clear, concise orders that can be understood easily by everyone in the chain of command.

• “But can’t you end up with a bunch of individual elements just doing whatever they want – helter-skelter?”

• “You could end up with that if you, as a leader, failed to give clear guidance and set distinct boundaries.”

• “A mission statement.”

• “That’s part of it, but there is more. A mission statement tells your troops what you are doing. But they have got to understand why they are doing it.”

• “The teams have to be small enough that one person can truly lead them, ‘Span of Control’ is the commonly used business term. … You need to find out the optimal size for your teams”

From a leadership perspective, there is truly nothing more important than an understanding of the dynamics of Decentralised Command. This is proper command and control in a nutshell.

Trust is not blindly given. It must be built over time. It is important that the junior leaders are allowed to make decisions – and backed up even if they don’t make them correctly. Open conversations build trust. Overcoming stress and challenging environments builds trust. Working through emergencies and seeing how people react builds trust.

PART III: SUSTAINING VICTORY

Chapter 9

Plan

Principle

What’s the mission? Planning begins with mission analysis. Leaders must identify clear directives for the team. A broad and ambiguous mission results in lack of focus, ineffective execution, and mission creep. To prevent this, the mission must be carefully refined and simplified so that it is explicitly clear and specifically focussed to achieve the greater strategic vision for which that mission is a part. The mission must explain the overall purpose and desired result, or “end state,” of the operation. A simple statement, the Commander’s Intent, is the most important part of the brief. When understood by everyone involved in the execution of the plan, it guides each decision and action on the ground.

Different courses of action must be explored on how best to accomplish the mission – with the manpower, resources, and supporting assets available. It is critical to utilise all assets and lean on the expertise of those in the best positions to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information.

Leaders must delegate the planning process down the chain to key subordinate leaders as much as possible. Giving the frontline troops ownership of even a small piece of the plan gives them buy-in, helps them understand the reasons behind the plan, and better enables them to believe in the mission, which translates to far more effective implementation and execution on the ground.

While the senior leader supervises the entire planning process by team members, he or she must be careful not to get bogged down in the details. By maintaining a perspective above the micro terrain of the plan, the senior leader can better ensure compliance with strategic objectives. Doing so enables senior leaders to “stand back and be the tactical genius” – to identify weaknesses or holes in the plan that those immersed in the details might have missed.

Once the detailed plan has been developed, it must then be briefed to the entire team and all participants and supporting elements. Leaders must carefully prioritise the information to be presented in as simple, clear, and concise a format as possible so that participants do not experience information overload. The planning process and briefing must be a forum that encourages discussion, questions, and clarification from even the most junior personnel.

Following a successful brief, all members participating in an operation will understand the strategic mission, the Commander’s Intent, the specific mission of the team, and their individual roles within that mission. They will understand contingencies – likely challenges that might arise and how to respond.

A good plan must enable the highest chance of mission success while mitigating as much risk as possible. There are some risks that simply cannot be mitigated, and leaders must instead focus on those risks that actually can be controlled. Whether on the battlefield or in the business world, leaders must be comfortable accepting some level of risk.

The best teams employ constant analysis of their tactics and measure their effectiveness so that they can adapt their methods and implement lessons learned for future missions. The best SEAL units, after each combat operation, conduct what we called a “post-operational debrief.” No matter how exhausted from an operation or how busy planning for the next mission, time is made for this debrief because lives and future mission success depend on it. A post-operational debrief examines all phases of an operation from planning through execution, in a concise format. It addresses the following for a combat mission just completed: What went right? What went wrong? How can we adapt our tactics to make us even more effective and increase our advantage over the enemy?

While businesses can have their own planning process, it must be standardised so that other departments within the company and supporting assets outside the company (such as service contractors or subsidiary companies) can understand and use the same format and terminology. It must be repeatable and guide users with a checklist of all the important things they need to think about.

A leader’s checklist for planning should include the following:

• Analyse the mission.

  • Understand higher headquarters’ mission, Commander’s Intent, and end state (the goal).

  • Identify and state your own Commander’s Intent and end state for the specific mission.

• Identify personnel, assets, resources, and time available.

• Decentralise the planning process.

  • Empower key leaders within the team to analyse possible courses of action.

• Determine a specific course of action.

  • Lean towards selecting the simplest course of action.

  • Focus efforts on the best course of action.

• Empower key leaders to develop the plan for the selected course of action.

• Plan for likely contingencies through each phase of the operation.

• Mitigate risks that can be controlled as much as possible.

• Delegate portions of the plan and brief to key junior leaders.

  • Stand back and be the tactical genius.

• Continually check and question the plan against emerging information to ensure it still fits the situation.

• Brief the plan to all participants and supporting assets.

  • Emphasise Commander’s Intent.

  • Ask questions and engage in discussion and interaction with the team to ensure they understand.

• Conduct a post-operational debrief after execution.

  • Analyse lessons learned and implement them in future planning.

Application to Business

This brief laid out the specific details of who, what, when, where, why, and how a combat operation would be conducted.

“The trust test for a good brief,” Jocko continued, “is not whether the senior officers are impressed. It’s whether or not the troops that are going to execute the operation actually understand it. Everything else is bullshit …”

Chapter 10

Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command

Leading Down the Chain of Command:

As platoon commander, I had detailed insight into the planning and coordination with the Army and Marine battalions and companies that was far beyond most of the SEAL operators in my platoon. Yet, if I didn’t fully comprehend or appreciate the strategic impact of what we had done, how could I expect my frontline troops – my junior SEAL operators not in a leadership role – to get it? The answer: I couldn’t. For a young SEAL shooter with a very limited role in the planning process who was out working on his weapons and gear, conducting maintenance on our vehicles, or building demolition chargers for the breacher, he walked into our mission briefs wondering: What are we doing next? He had no context for why we were doing the operation or how the next tactical mission fit into the bigger picture of stabilising and securing Ramadi.

I realised now that, as their leader, I had failed to explain it to them. Clearly, there was some level of strategic perspective and comprehension that would only come with time and reflection. But I could have done a far better job as a leader to understand for myself the strategic impact of our operations and passed this insight to my troops. Even when a leader thinks his troops understand the bigger picture, they very often have difficulty connecting the dots between the tactical mission they are immersed in with the greater overarching goal.

Looking back on Task Unit Bruiser’s deployment to Ramadi, I realised that the SEALs in Charlie Platoon who suffered the worst combat fatigue, whose attitudes grew progressively more negative as the months of heavy combat wore on, who most questioned the level of risk we were taking on operations – they all had the least ownership of the planning for each operation. Conversely, the SEAL operators who remained focussed and positive, who believed in what we were doing, and who were eager to continue and would have stayed on beyond our six-month deployment if they could – they all had some ownership of the planning process in each operation.

Principle: Leading Down the Chain of Command

It is paramount that senior leaders explain to their junior leaders and troops executing the mission how their role contributes to big picture success.

As a leader employing Extreme Ownership, if your team isn’t doing what you need them to do, you first have to look at yourself. Rather than blaming them for not seeing the strategic picture, you must figure out a way to better communicate it to them in terms that are simple, clear, and concise, so that they understand. This is what leading down the chain of command is all about.

Leading Up the Chain of Command:

“We are here. We are on the ground. We need to push situational awareness up the chain,” Jocko said. “If they have questions, it is our fault for not properly communicating the information they need. We have to lead them.” … “Leadership doesn’t just flow down the chain of command, but up as well,” he said. “We have to own everything in our world. That’s what Extreme Ownership is all about.” … “We have to look at ourselves and see what we can do better.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I can bitch about their questions and scrutiny all I want, but at the end of the day, it gets us no closer to getting our operations approved. If I get them the information they need and put the CO (Commanding Officer) in his comfort zone with what we are doing, we are going to be much more effective getting ops approved, which will enable us to inflict greater damage on the bad guys and win.”

Principle: Leading Up the Chain of Command

Leading up the chain of command requires tactful engagement with the immediate boss to obtain the decisions and support necessary to enable your team to accomplish its mission and ultimately win. To do this, a leader must push situational awareness up the chain of command.

You must also realise that your boss must allocate limited assets and make decisions with the bigger picture in mind. You and your team may not represent the priority effort at that particular time. Or perhaps the senior leadership has chosen a different direction. Have the humility to understand and accept this.

One of the most important jobs of any leader is to support your own boss – your immediate leadership. In any chain of command, the leadership must always present a united front to the troops. A public display or discontent or disagreement with the chain of command undermines the authority of leaders at all levels. This is catastrophic to the performance of any organisation.

When leading up the chain of command, use caution and respect. But remember, if your leader is not giving you the support you need, don’t blame him or her. Instead, re-examine what you can do to better clarify, educate, influence, or convince that person to give you what you need in order to win.

The major factors to be aware of when leading up and down the chain of command are these:

• Take responsibility for leading everyone in your world, subordinates and superiors alike.

• If someone isn’t doing what you want or need them to do, look in the mirror first and determine what you can do to better enable this.

• Don’t ask your leader what you should do, tell them what you are going to do.

Chapter 11

Decisiveness amid Uncertainty

“I’ve got a guy with a scoped weapon in the second-story window of building 127,” said Chris.

What made Chris Kyle such a great sniper was not that he was the most exceptional marksman. His secret was that he practiced Extreme Ownership of his craft. Intimately involved in planning and scouting potential sniper overwatch positions, he put himself in the right place at the right time to maximise his effectiveness. While others might get bored and lose focus after an hour or two of staring through the reticle of their sniper scope, Chris maintained discipline and stayed vigilant. He was lucky, but more often than not he made his luck.

In combat as in life, the outcome is never certain, the picture never clear. There are no guarantees of success. But in order to succeed, leaders must be comfortable under pressure, and act on logic, not emotion. This is a critical component to victory.

Principle

There is no 100% right solution. The picture is never complete. Leaders must be comfortable with this and be able to make decisions promptly, and then be ready to adjust those decisions quickly based on evolving situations and new information. Waiting for the 100% right and certain solutions leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.

Application to Business

“When Leif and I were in Task Unit Bruiser together,” Jocko continued, “another task unit at our SEAL Team had a major issue between the task unit commander and one of the platoon commanders. Both were key leaders in positions critical to the task unit’s performance. But these guys just couldn’t get along. They hated each other. Each bad-mouthed the other to our SEAL Team’s commanding officer and his staff. Finally, our commanding officer – our CEO – declared he had had enough. He gave them the weekend to figure out a way they could work together. On Monday morning, they both still insisted they could not work together, and each demanded that the other be fired. Instead, and to their surprise, the commanding officer fired them both.”

• As a leader, your default setting should be aggressive – proactive rather than reactive. This is critical to the success of any team. Instead of letting the situation dictate your decisions, you must dictate the situation. But for many leaders, this mind-set is not intuitive. Many operate with a “wait and see” approach.

• How do you want to be perceived? Do you want to be seen as someone who can be held hostage by the demands – the threats – being made? Do you want to be seen as indecisive? As a leader, you want to be seen – you need to be seen – as decisive, and willing to make tough choices.

• People with destructive attitudes can be like cancers. They will metastasise within the team and spread to others. The quicker you cut them out, the less damage they will do, the less negativity they will spread, and, most important, the fewer people they will pull away with them.

Chapter 12

Discipline Equals Freedom – The Dichotomy of Leadership

While we often found the evidence or intelligence we were looking for, on several occasions critical intelligence and evidence was missed or left behind because no specific person had been designated as responsible for its collection.

Implementing a disciplined search method drastically improved our effectiveness and efficiency. It meant we were less likely to miss key evidence and intelligence. It also improved our speed, which meant we could spend less time on target, which reduced the risk of enemy counterattack.

Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning. This is a very decisive moment. The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.

Waking up early was the first example I noticed in the SEAL Teams in which discipline was really the difference between being good and being exceptional. … By discipline, I mean an intrinsic self-discipline – a matter of personal will. The best SEALs I worked with were invariably the most disciplined. They woke up early. They worked out every day. They studied tactics and technology. They practiced their craft.

Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom. When you have the discipline to get up early, you are rewarded with more free time. When you have the discipline to keep your helmet and body armour on in the field, you become accustomed to it and can move freely in it. The more discipline you have to work out, train your body physically and become stronger, the lighter your gear feels and the easier you can move around in it.

Discipline is not only the most important quality for an individual, but also for a team. The more disciplined standard operating procedures (SOPs) a team employs, the more freedom they have to practice Decentralised Command (chapter 8) and thus they can execute faster, sharper, and more efficiently. A unit that has tighter and more-disciplined procedures and processes will excel and win.

Instead of making us more rigid and unable to improvise, this discipline actually made us more flexible, more adaptable, and more efficient. It allowed us to be creative. When we wanted to change plans midstream on an operation, we didn’t have to recreate an entire plan. We had the freedom to work within the framework of our disciplined procedures. All we had to do was link them together and explain whatever small portion of the plan had been changed. When we wanted to mix and match fire teams, squads, and even platoons, we could do so with ease since each element operated with the same fundamental procedures. Last, and perhaps most important, when things went wrong and the fog of war set in, we fell back on our disciplined procedures to carry us through the toughest challenges on the battlefield.

Principle

Every leader must walk a fine line. That’s what makes leadership so challenging. Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities, between one extreme and another.

The Dichotomy of Leadership:

A good leader must be:

• Confident but not cocky

• Courageous but not foolhardy

• Competitive but a gracious loser

• Attentive to details but not obsessed by them

• Strong but have endurance

• A leader and a follower

• Humble not passive

• Aggressive not overbearing

• Quiet not silent

• Calm but not robotic, logical but not devoid of emotions

• Close with the troops but not so close that one becomes more important than another or more important than the team; not so close that they forget who is in charge

• Able to exercise Extreme Ownership, while exercising Decentralised Command

A good leader has nothing to prove, but everything to prove.

Afterword

The goal of all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job. This means leaders must be heavily engaged in training and mentoring their junior leaders to prepare them to step up and assume greater responsibilities.

Much of what has been covered in this book has been covered in the past. Although these principles are often simple to understand in theory, it can be difficult to apply them in life. Leadership is simple, but not easy.